Prophets & prophecy

Prophecies of Muhammad ﷺ

Muslims believe that earlier prophets foretold the coming of Muhammad ﷺ, and the Qur’an says he is described in the Torah and the Gospel. This page gathers the passages Muslims point to, with the Christian reading of each.

1The question

Does the Bible foretell a prophet after Jesus, and could that prophet be Muhammad ﷺ?

2What Christians believe

Christians read the passages Muslims cite as pointing to Jesus or to the Holy Spirit. Acts 3:22 applies the promise of a prophet like Moses to Jesus. John 14:26 names the Comforter as the Holy Ghost. Matthew 12:17–21 applies Isaiah 42 to Jesus.

Christians also hold that after Jesus no further prophet is needed, because God has spoken his final word in his Son (Hebrews 1:1–2). They warn against reading later events into older texts.

3What the texts say

A prophet like Moses

I will raise them up a Prophet from among their brethren, like unto thee, and will put my words in his mouth; and he shall speak unto them all that I shall command him.
Deuteronomy 18:18 · KJVRead in context →

A light from Paran

And he said, The LORD came from Sinai, and rose up from Seir unto them; he shined forth from mount Paran, and he came with ten thousands of saints: from his right hand went a fiery law for them.
Deuteronomy 33:2 · KJVRead in context →
God came from Teman, and the Holy One from mount Paran. Selah. His glory covered the heavens, and the earth was full of his praise.
Habakkuk 3:3 · KJVRead in context →
And he dwelt in the wilderness of Paran: and his mother took him a wife out of the land of Egypt.
Genesis 21:21 · KJVRead in context →

A song from the villages of Kedar

Let the wilderness and the cities thereof lift up their voice, the villages that Kedar doth inhabit: let the inhabitants of the rock sing, let them shout from the top of the mountains.
Isaiah 42:11 · KJVRead in context →

Another Comforter

Nevertheless I tell you the truth; It is expedient for you that I go away: for if I go not away, the Comforter will not come unto you; but if I depart, I will send him unto you.
John 16:7 · KJVRead in context →

“That prophet” still awaited

And they asked him, What then? Art thou Elias? And he saith, I am not. Art thou that prophet? And he answered, No.
John 1:21 · KJVRead in context →

4What scholars say

Muslim writers have collected these passages for over a thousand years. One of the earliest is the ninth-century scholar Ali ibn Rabban al-Tabari, a convert from Christianity, in his Book of Religion and Empire. In English, Ahmed Deedat’s booklet What the Bible Says About Muhammad (1976) made the argument widely known.

Christian commentators such as Peter C. Craigie (The Book of Deuteronomy, 1976) read Deuteronomy 18 first as a promise of prophets in Israel. Biblical scholars usually place Paran, where Ishmael lived, in the Sinai peninsula, while Muslim writers often identify it with the region of Mecca. The location is debated.

Scholars agree that John 1:21 shows some Jews in Jesus’s day still waiting for “that prophet”, as a figure separate from the Messiah and from Elijah.

5The Islamic perspective

The Qur’an says that the coming of Muhammad ﷺ was foretold. Jesus himself gave good news of a messenger after him, and the People of the Book would find the Prophet described in their scriptures:

And when Jesus son of Mary said: O Children of Israel! Lo! I am the messenger of Allah unto you, confirming that which was (revealed) before me in the Torah, and bringing good tidings of a messenger who cometh after me, whose name is the Praised One. Yet when he hath come unto them with clear proofs, they say: This is mere magic.
Qur’an 61:6 · PickthallRead in context →
Those who follow the messenger, the Prophet who can neither read nor write, whom they will find described in the Torah and the Gospel (which are) with them. He will enjoin on them that which is right and forbid them that which is wrong. He will make lawful for them all good things and prohibit for them only the foul; and he will relieve them of their burden and the fetters that they used to wear. Then those who believe in him, and honour him, and help him, and follow the light which is sent down with him: they are the successful.
Qur’an 7:157 · PickthallRead in context →
We sent thee not save as a mercy for the peoples.
Qur’an 21:107 · PickthallRead in context →

Muslims see a pattern across the passages: a prophet like Moses from the brethren of Israel, a light that shines from Paran where Ishmael lived, a song rising from Kedar, Ishmael’s son, and a Comforter who comes only after Jesus leaves. Each passage on its own can be read in more than one way; together, Muslims argue, they point to the Prophet ﷺ.

6Objections and responses

“None of these passages names Muhammad.”

Response: Prophecy in the Bible usually describes rather than names. Christians read Isaiah 53 as being about Jesus, though it never names him. The question is which figure fits the description best, and Muslims invite readers to test each detail.

“Paran is in the Sinai, not Arabia.”

Response: Its location is debated, and Muslims should say so. But Genesis says Ishmael lived in the wilderness of Paran (21:21), and his descendants, including Kedar, became the Arab peoples of northern Arabia. Muslims read Deuteronomy 33:2 as three revelations: Sinai for Moses, Seir for Jesus, and Paran for Muhammad ﷺ.

7Conclusion

Both sides agree that the Bible looks forward to a coming prophet and a coming Comforter, and that some Jews in Jesus’s time were still waiting for “that prophet”. Christians find the fulfilment in Jesus and the Holy Spirit. Muslims find in these passages, taken together, a description of Muhammad ﷺ.

Read Deuteronomy 18:15–22, Isaiah 42:1–13 and John 16:5–15, and ask who fits each one.

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